computer wizards i need your help!

[Jonesy]

Hi, normally im pretty good with comps but this one baffles me, about an hour ago the computer restarted by itself I was playing the 360 in the other room, I heard the beep and was like wtf! so I went to check it out and it came up with a screen saying 'sorry for the inconvenience the computer has been restarted blah blah blah, and gave me the options safe mode, safe mode with networking, last known config and normal load of xp.

Anyway ive tried them all and none of these options will load windows as once you select them it looks like its about to load with the winxp splash screen the restarts again coming up with the same screen as before.

I cant work it out I have disconnected everything I can from the back and tried booting with the hdd, cdrom drive and a drive disconnected and stilll no luck. I can’t seem to find the recovery cd it came with at the moment but it must be around somewhere. Do you think that would get it booted up?

btw i no it sounds strange but at the time i was playing the 360 and it froze up on the dash for about 10 secs then as soon as it started working again I heard the beep from the computer in the other room, maybe connected, power surge?

Thanks

Allan

 

[ollie]

very strage :S Wouldn't know what to suggest.... You not got an old Windows CD knocking about?!

Gonna be a ball ache if you cant get back into it without reformatted

 

[Jonesy]

ya i no m8, im gonna attempt the recovery cd and see wot happens, i dont mind formatting the c drive as i has just windows and a few progs all my important files and downloads are on a seperate hdd.

 

[Jonesy]

no worrys ive fixed it by formatting and reinstalling xp, i found the restore cd, yeeessshhhh!

 

[ollie]

I'm debating whether or not to reforamt too....

hmmm... Vista again maybe -_-

 

[muld]

Ah, the old windows XP loop boot! Seen more than a few of these in my time, this is no single solution though the most effective however seems to be a faulty IDE or SATA cable, i'd suggest swapping this and seeing what happens, this fixed about 50% of the machines where this has happened here.

dodgy memory also can cause this, try each dimm at a time? assuming you have two!

A windows re-install would ofc work but is much more hassle!

 

[Jonesy]

problem has come back again, nooooooooo! Tried all the different memory combinations have 4 slots with 512 in each. Still wont boot tried different sata cables no luck there either. Havent got time to reformat just want a quick fix, damn my computer!!

 

[muld]

have you tried resetting your bios to defaults? also try underclocking your memory, ie if it is 677 try putting it on 533. I had this problem again yesterday (after an upgrade) and resetting the bios and clocking the memory slower worked.

 

[rich[182]]

I had this recently

Was a combination of the following for me, however IDE drive for me not SATA

Removed the Nvidia IDE driver and just used the XP Pro one
Changed HDD settings to auto in bios
Also recreated the MBR (Master Boot Record)
Booted into safe mode, scheduled disk check on next bootup, ran that
Booted as normal been ok since